The current smallest chips have connections measuring 45nm – these will be followed by 32nm next year and, possibly, 10nm or below around 2012.

Smaller parts means more energy-efficient systems and greater processing power per chip; clearly desirable attributes that are driving Intel and others to innovate as quickly as possible.

SPAM-alot

Finally for this morning, anyone still unsure about just how bad the spam problem is should take a close look at an experiment run by McAfee in which participants responded to all junk mail to see what would actually happen.

Instead of deleting obvious spam, trialists who clicked the fake 'remove me' links or otherwise responded ended up with not just more spam but real, paper junk mail too.

In just one month UK testers managed to attract around 10,000 unwanted messages, but those in the US averaged a horrifying 23,000 in the same period.

That's it for now, but stay tuned to TechRadar for the rest of the day's news as it breaks.